WPB, COUNTY SET TO TRY TO ESTABLISH ROAD TASK FORCE

Verbal skirmishes between city and Palm Beach County officials over downtown access may come to a head today when the two sides attempt to establish a joint task force.

The battle has come down to what City Engineer Ron Schutta calls the county's "concrete jungle" approach and what County Engineer Herb Kahlert has called the city's "short-sighted" approach.

The task force would examine plans for handling traffic to and from downtown West Palm Beach and would make a recommendation on what should be done and how it should be financed.

County officials say the city's plan for downtown access, developed from a year of study and elimination of several corridors because of potential neighborhood disruption, is too little, too late.

Under the city plan, most downtown streets would be reworked to handle increased traffic and a new, high-volume corridor would be developed along Railroad Avenue between Okeechobee Boulevard south of downtown and Loftin Street north of downtown. First Street would be widened, and Georgia and Florida avenues would be reworked, all to handle rush-hour traffic in and out of downtown.

In addition, the city plan calls for a limited-access expressway to feed traffic from the western area into downtown.

While the county plan calls for a limited-access corridor, it also calls for a system of limited access roads through the downtown area to release most traffic in the center of downtown rather than at its fringes. The plan also calls for more access to and from Interstate 95 south of Okeechobee Boulevard and at Congress Avenue, with an extension of First Street across Clear Lake.

The cost of the county proposal, which was developed in less than a week and did not consider residential neighborhood impacts, has been placed at more than $160 million, while the city plan comes in at about $56 million, spread over the next 15 years.

"The county has proposed a concrete jungle that we cannot really afford," Schutta said.

"We can meet the need with impact fees and 75 percent of tax increment financing for the first three years," he said, "and in three or four years we will have enough for a bond issue to pay for the biggie."

That "biggie," a limited-access road from a western expressway, would tie that link into the revised downtown traffic pattern, Schutta said.

The city should not have to pay for the expressway, city commissioners have said, noting that studies by the county's independent Expressway Authority are getting under way.

In the first round of public meetings to explain that study, however, residents west of the city expressed opposition to a toll road through their area, particularly the corridor near Southern Boulevard.

Tax increment financing would freeze property taxes collected for the Downtown Development Authority at their present levels, with additional revenues raised from new construction and increased property values going into a trust fund for street improvements. The Legislature will consider the measure in the upcoming session.

City commissioners also are considering either joining the county's impact fee program, or establishing one of its own, which would mean all new construction citywide would have to pay according to a formula still to be determined for street improvements to meet traffic impacts created by that construction.

Commissioners, though, are still at an impasse over whether impact fees should be collected citywide or in zones, similar to the county's program.

A representative of the major developer in the Westward area, however, has already told commissioners his firm would object to non-zoned collections.

John Lindstroth of Perini Land and Development Co. told commissioners earlier this week that, while his firm doesn't oppose impact fees, it would be unfair for impact fees collected from the Westward area to be spent downtown while there are so many needs in that western growth area.

Lance Clarke, director of the Downtown Development Authority, told commissioners his agency would not like to see impact fees collected downtown spent in other areas of the city.

Kahlert disagreed with Schutta's contention that the city plan will take care of most of the traffic problems that will come with development.

There is enough office and residential space recently completed, under construction or approved to more than use up existing or proposed road capacity, he said.

One of the county's major criticisms of the city is that almost 2 million square feet of office, hotel and apartment space has been approved by the city over the past four years without any commitments for road improvements or right of way set aside for future road widening.

Kahlert cited the approval of a new office-hotel complex at the corner of Australian Avenue and First Street, now in the early stages of construction.

"Just that one project along would generate enough traffic to warrant an additional (traffic) lane on Australian, and on First Street," he said, "yet the city didn't even require a single bit of right of way to be aside."

Those commitments were not necessary, Schutta said, because the new buildings will not put that much additional burden on the downtown road system.

"Those new buildings have put the money in in different ways," he said. "There has not been that much impact. Nothing to put it in the traffic jam status."

That will not be true in the future, however, Schutta said.

"Our (downtown traffic) capacity is not zero, but if we don't start now, in 10 years, it will be too late to start," he said.

"We want to get projects ongoing without bonding the city down," Schutta said. "If the county will accept that, and they do a few things, we will have all the improvements done by 1992, and the new buildings will fit right in.

"We are not interested in concrete jungles covering up our downtown," Schutta said. "That's the key."